The Big Yellow Book of German Verbs

706 Pages·2008·8.84 MB·English

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THE
BIGYELLOW
BOOK OF GERMAN VERBS
555
FULLY CONJUGATED VERBS
Paul Listen, Ph.D. Robert Di Donato, Ph.D.
Daniel Franklin
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DOI: 10.1036/0071469559
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Contents
German Tense Profiles 1
(cid:2) Comprehensive summaries of formation and uses of each tense
The Basics of Conjugation 2 Special Types and Uses of Finite Verbs 29
Person and Number 2 Reflexive Verbs 29
Mood and Tense 3 Dative Verbs 30
Voice 4 Genitive Verbs 30
The German Verb 4 Impersonal Verbs 30
The Infinitive 4 Modal Verbs and lassen 30
Verb Classes 4 Other Dual-Verb Constructions 31
Principal Parts of the Verb 5 The Passive Voice 31
Th7e Simple Tenses The Imperative Mood 33
The Present 7 Nonfinite Verb Forms 34
The Simple Past 12 The Infinitive 34
The Present Subjunctive I 15 The Present Participle 35
The Present Subjunctive II 15 The Gerundive (zu (cid:2) Present Participle) 36
The Compound Tenses 18 The Past Participle 36
The Future 18 Verb Placement:Overview 36
The Future Subjunctive I 19 The Sentence Frame 36
The Future Subjunctive II 19 Spelling Reform 38
The Present Perfect 20
The Past Participle 20
The Perfect Auxiliary: haben or sein? 23
The Past Perfect 24
The Past Subjunctive I 25
The Past Subjunctive II 25
The Future Perfect 26
The Future Perfect Subjunctive I 27
The Future Perfect Subjunctive II 28
555 Fully Conjugated Verbs 39
(cid:2) Alphabetically ordered with examples of common use
Top 50 Verbs:Full page of examples adjoining select conjugations
Exercises 646
(cid:2) Drills to test and improve your grasp of correct verb forms
Answers to Exercises 650
English-German Verb Index 651
(cid:2) 555 verb models cross-referenced by their English meanings
Irregular Verb Form Index 658
(cid:2) Index showing the infinitive of difficult irregular German verb forms
German Verb Index 662
(cid:2) More than 4,200 verbs showing 3 principal parts and cross-referenced to the full verb models
iii
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GERMAN
TENSE
PROFILES
Copyright © 2005 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click here for terms of use.
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2 THE BASICS OF CONJUGATION
THE BASICS OF CONJUGATION
A verb is the part of speech that expresses an action, mode of being, or occurrence, for exam-
ple, to run, to think, tolive,or in German, laufen, denken, leben. When used in a sentence,
the verb is said to be inflected, meaning it may have endings or inflections. To conjugate a
verb means to list all its different inflected forms in a specific and logical fashion.
German has more inflected forms than English. Compare the following two sentences.
Ich laufejeden Tag. I run every day.
Wir laufenjeden Tag. We run every day.
Notice that English uses the same form (run) in both sentences, whereas German has two
different forms (laufe, laufen). As you can see from the examples, the difference between the
forms is the endings.
Endings are one of the ways inflected verbs can show the grammatical categories of person
(Person), number (NumerusorZahl), mood (Modus), and tense (Tempusor Zeit). This sec-
tion provides an overview of these grammatical categories and the category of voice (Genus).
The basics of German verb conjugation are also presented.
PERSON AND NUMBER
The grammatical categories of person and number are features of both nouns and verbs in
German.
Number can be either singular or plural. A noun or pronoun is singular if it refers to a single
person or thing, for example, I, she, the house,or Mr. Smith.A noun or pronoun is plural if it
refers to more than one person or thing, for example, we, they, orchids,or the Joneses.
The verb in a German sentence agrees with the subject noun in that sentence. If the subject is
singular, then the verb must be a singular form, too. If the subject is plural, the verb must be
plural.
For convenience and efficiency, pronouns are used in the conjugation tables of this book. It is
therefore important to understand the German pronouns, how they relate to person and
number, and how they relate to other nouns.
German Pronouns
NOMINATIVE ACCUSATIVE DATIVE GENITIVE
SINGULAR
FIRST PERSON ich mich mir meiner I/me
SECOND PERSON du dich dir deiner you(familiar)
Sie Sie Ihnen Ihrer you(formal)
THIRD PERSON er ihn ihm seiner he/him
sie sie ihr ihrer she/her
es es ihm seiner it
PLURAL
FIRST PERSON wir uns uns unser we/us
SECOND PERSON ihr euch euch eurer you(familiar)
Sie Sie Ihnen Ihrer you(formal)
THIRD PERSON sie sie ihnen ihrer they/them
Case is a characteristic of nouns and pronouns, as well as of the noun phrases they appear in.
There are four cases in German:nominative, accusative, dative, and genitive.
The nominative case is used for the subject of a sentence, as well as for predicates involving
verbs such as seinto be and werdento become. The accusative case is used for the direct object
of a sentence (generally) and for the object of certain prepositions. The dative case is used for
the indirect object of a sentence and for the object of certain verbs and prepositions. The
genitive case is used to show possession or relation; it is also used for the object of certain
verbs and prepositions. Genitive pronouns are not commonly used in modern German.
These tense profiles focus on nominative pronouns, since they are most relevant to the form
of the verb in a sentence.
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Mood and Tense 3
The category of person encompasses first person, second person, and third person. First per-
son is the speaker or the speaker and others for whom he or she speaks. First person is ex-
pressed in the singular personal pronoun ich (I) and the plural personal pronoun wir (we).
Second person is the hearer(s), or the person(s) to whom the speaker is talking, writing, or
communicating, expressed in the personal pronouns du, ihr, and Sie (singular and plural)
(you). Third person is anyone or anything other than the speaker and hearer. Thus, third per-
son includes the subject pronouns er, sie, es, and sie(he, she, it,and they).
In the following table, the present tense of the verb laufento runis shown in the format used
in this book.
SINGULAR PLURAL
FIRST PERSON ich laufe wir laufen
SECOND PERSON du läufst ihr lauft
Sie laufen Sie laufen
THIRD PERSON er/sie/es läuft sie laufen
Each subject pronoun is paired with an inflected verb form, which shows the proper ending
for agreement with that particular pronoun. (Some forms have an äwhere others have an a.
This is called “umlaut” or vowel change and is another way some verbs in German are in-
flected. This will be explained below.) The duand ihrforms are familiar; the Sieforms are
formal.
An inflected verb is said to agree with the subject of its sentence, which means it has endings
that are specific to the subject in both person (first, second, or third) and number (singular or
plural).
Many sentences have subjects that are made up of more than pronouns, of course. It is im-
portant to understand how the subject pronouns used in the conjugation tables relate to
nouns and other pronouns that might be used as the subject of a sentence.
Third person comprises all pronouns outside the first and second persons, as well as any
common or proper noun. Unlike first and second person, third person frequently involves no
pronouns at all. In the sentences below, the noun phrases used as subjects are all in the third
person and would therefore require a third-person singular or third-person plural verb form.
Third-Person Singular
Sielacht. She laughs.
Unsere Mutterlacht. Our mother laughs.
Third-Person Plural
Meine Freundelachen. My friends laugh.
Er und Boblachen. He and Bob laugh.
The last sentence above contains a compound subject, meaning more than one noun or pro-
noun is involved. If a sentence has a compound subject, the verb must be plural.
If a compound subject contains a first-person pronoun, the verb is first-person plural. If a
compound subject contains a second-person pronoun, the verb is second-person plural unless
the subject also contains a first-person pronoun. First person overrides second person.
First-Person Plural
Meine Freunde und ichkochen. My friends and I cook.
Du und ichkochen. You and I cook.
Second-Person Plural
Du und die Kinderkocht. You and the children cook.
Sie und erkochen. You and he cook.
MOOD AND TENSE
An inflected verb is said to be in one of three moods: indicative, subjunctive, or imperative.
German uses the indicative mood to talk about things that the speaker perceives as real, true,
or factual. The subjunctive mood is used for contingent, possible, hypothetical, and what-if
expressions. It is also used to make requests more polite. German actually has two different
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4 THE BASICS OF CONJUGATION
kinds of subjunctive mood: subjunctive I and subjunctive II. The imperative mood is used for
commands and instructions.
There are six basic tenses in German: present, simple past, future, present perfect, past per-
fect, and future perfect. Theses tenses combine with moods to make a total of 14 conjugation
patterns (excluding the imperative).
Present Present Perfect
Simple Past Past Perfect
Future Future Perfect
Present Subjunctive I Past Subjunctive I
Present Subjunctive II Past Subjunctive II
Future Subjunctive I Future Perfect Subjunctive I
Future Subjunctive II Future Perfect Subjunctive II
All German tenses are either indicative or subjunctive. “Simple past” is actually “simple past
indicative”; the word “indicative” is usually omitted in tense names.
Inflections indicate agreement with the subject in person and number. They also show mood
and tense.
VOICE
German has two voices: active and passive. In an active-voice sentence, the subject is the per-
son or thing doing the action expressed by the verb. In a passive-voice sentence, the focus is
on either the action itself or the person or thing being acted upon. The 555 conjugation ta-
bles in this book present only the active forms, since the passive forms can be easily derived
from them. For details on formation and use of the passive, see pages 31–32.
THE GERMAN VERB
The Infinitive
Inflected forms are also known as finite forms. They are finite in that they are limited to a
certain person and number. Forms that are not finite include infinitives and participles.
The basic German infinitive is made up of a stem and a suffix (-n or -en). By far, the more
common suffix is -en.
bauen sammeln
bringen tun
öffnen wandern
These are actually present active infinitives; for other infinitive types, see pages 34–35.
Verb Classes
There are many ways to categorize German verbs. A common way, and one that is most use-
ful for learning conjugations, is to divide them into classes based on their conjugation pat-
terns. The names of these classes vary slightly from one approach to another. This book uses
the terms “regular weak,” “strong,” “mixed,” and “modal” to refer to four classes of verbs.
Regular Weak Verbs Regular weak verbs are often called simply “regular verbs” or “weak
verbs.” The great majority of German verbs belong to this class.
In some instances, the form of a German verb’s infinitive provides a clue to its class. For ex-
ample, all verbs ending in -eln or -ernare regular weak. All verbs ending in -ieren are regu-
lar weak, except for frieren, verlieren, and any prefixed verbs based on them. For all other
German verbs, the form of the infinitive does not reliably indicate its class.
Regular weak verbs have -te as a marker of the simple past tense and the suffix -(e)t in the
past participle. The stem stays the same in all forms. Once the infinitive of a regular weak
verb is known, all other forms can be derived according to regular rules.
SIMPLE PAST PAST
INFINITIVE TENSE (3SG.) PARTICIPLE ENGLISH
bauen baute gebaut to build
For more details about regular weak verbs, see individual tense profiles beginning on page 7.